The Designers Institute of New Zealand awards its 2013 Black Pin for Outstanding Achievement to DNA’s, Grenville Main

The Designers Institute of New Zealand has awarded its 2013 Black Pin for Outstanding Achievement to DNA’s, Grenville Main.

Granted to an individual who has made a lasting and valuable contribution to the design profession and to design in general, the Black Pin was presented to Main at the 2013 Best Design Awards event held in Auckland on Friday.

In giving the Award, the Institute recognized Main’s portfolio of award winning design work, and his role as a leader in the NZ design community.

Main is the creative director and managing director of DNA, and Fellow of the Designers Institute of New Zealand.

Main graduated from Wellington Polytechnic with a diploma in Visual Communications. He learned his craft from Gus van de Roer who was confident enough to entrust him with the task of establishing Van de Roer Design in Auckland while he was in his early twenties. However Main was soon drawn back to Wellington, where he was employed by Bright Newlands and Associates (later DNA) ultimately becoming a shareholder alongside Christine Arden in the early 1990’s.

Since then he has taken DNA from being a small graphic design team to a strategic design consultancy working to deliver design research, design thinking and designed outcomes across multiple channels. The consultancy’s approach is defined by placing the user or customer at the heart of everything DNA does, working to deliver seamless interactions and experiences in an integrated manner. DNA is sought after by a wide range of clients in New Zealand and Australia because of a determination to focus on effect and a unique approach to problem solving.

As creative director he and his team have worked with many of New Zealand’s leading and most progressive organisations including New Zealand Rugby, Telecom, BNZ, Powershop, ACC and Icebreaker.

Main’s personality has been at the heart of this work. His openness, irreverence, intellect and humour have galvanised an always diverse team of talented practitioners. Never lost for a surgical, stinging witticism nor a profound, often tangential insight Gren has shaped projects and teams in his own unique way.

With his hands on most of the diverse, gnarly challenging projects DNA has tackled over the years Main has also morphed from a young punk with a design eye into a design leader, a business thinker and an insightful innovator.

Says Main in accepting the award: “Companies applying design to best effect get to see the compelling benefits of bringing customers to life – and placing them at the centre of their thinking. This leads to unlocking gains in how organisations transform customer experience – how they create products and serve customers – and what their strategies for growth and competitive differentiation look like”.

DNA had nine finalists in the 2013 Best Awards across graphic, interactive and best effect categories. DNA took home a Gold Pin for work with Rinnai in the Best Effect category and a silver for Powershop’s brand and recruitment website in the interactive category.